Her comments attracted criticism across social media
Well the Guardian knows which side it is on.
The former Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova has been criticised for “disturbing, upsetting, and deeply transphobic” comments after she argued that allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sporting tournaments was “insane and cheating”.
Dur dur dur; you can say that about anything, especially in The Twitter Age. The Guardian has been criticized for [insert your chosen loaded language here] too; that by itself tells us nothing, so it’s a stupid lede.
The tennis player and gay rights campaigner first drew criticism from equalities activists and trans athletes when she tweeted in December: “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”
Or to put it another way “some particularly venomous trans activists jumped all over the tennis player and gay rights campaigner when she quite reasonably said that men shouldn’t compete against women.”
Frances Perraudin, the author of the hit piece, quotes a few paragraphs from Navratilova’s article and then resumes the “she violently caused all these nice people to criticize her” nonsense.
Her comments attracted criticism across social media. “We’re pretty devastated to discover that Martina Navratilova is transphobic,” tweeted the rights group Trans Actual. “If trans women had an advantage in sport, why aren’t trans women winning gold medals left, right and centre?”
Her comments also attracted praise and agreement across social media, but the Guardian isn’t so interested in that. It’s just boring old dreary women, after all, and who cares about them.
Following her comments in December, Navratilova was criticised by Rachel McKinnon, a Canadian academic and cyclist, who in October became the first transgender woman to win a track world title.
She wasn’t just criticized by McKinnon, she was relentlessly bullied by McKinnon.
“McKinnon has vigorously defended her right to compete, pointing out that, when tested, her levels of testosterone, the male hormone, were well within the limits set by world cycling’s governing body,” wrote Navratilova on Sunday. “Nevertheless, at 6ft tall and weighing more than 14 stone, she appeared to have a substantial advantage in muscle mass over her rivals.”
The tennis star said she had been “pretty put out” by McKinnon’s accusation that she was transphobic and said she deplored “what seems to be a growing tendency among transgender activists to denounce anyone who argues against them”.
She pointed to her friendship with Renée Richards, the transgender tennis player who campaigned to be able to compete in the women’s US Open, and her support for Caster Semenya, who is fighting a legal battle to be able to compete without taking testosterone-suppressing medication.
In a statement to the Guardian, McKinnon described Navratilova’s article as “disturbing, upsetting, and deeply transphobic”. “She trades on age-old stereotypes and stigma against trans women, treating us as men just pretending to be real women. She seeks to deny trans women equal rights to compete under the rules,” she said.
The Guardian quotes a statement to the Guardian by McKinnon but says nothing about a statement from Navratilova. Why quote a statement from McKinnon but not from Navratilova?
Silly question; because the Guardian has chosen a side, that’s why, and it’s not next to women, that’s why.
Final para:
A spokesperson for the LGBT rights charity Stonewall said: “Sport should be welcoming to everyone, including trans people. We need clubs and governing bodies, as the experts, to consider how their sports’ individual policies can work to be as inclusive as possible, and what advice and guidance they’re giving to ensure all people, including trans people, can take part in sport.”
That’s not the issue. Nobody is saying trans people shouldn’t take part in sport; nobody. The issue is whether people with male bodies should demand to compete against women and be so accommodated. The issue is whether or not women get to continue to take part in sport with a real hope of winning as opposed to being swamped by competitors who have male bodies. The Guardian’s contemptuous indifference to the concerns of women is obvious.
I go to the Guardian (Grauniad, Groan, and variants) every morning for news, aware that it, like everything else, is ‘biased’. I even supported it financially. But then I removed that support when they ran a story on Sydney’s famous Cronulla Riots. Those riots arguably, and otherwise inexplicably, began when a bunch of young Muslim men attempted to claim a section of the beach as their own territory, involving a right claimed by them to exclude non-Muslims; which section of the beach was duly claimed back again for all to use, by young non-Muslim ‘rioter’ men.
Readers of Butterflies and Wheels can compare the Guardian account with that of a local Cronulla resident eyewitness account published in the right-wing online journal Quadrant Online. Logic and reason both favour the latter IMHO. But note, both are talking about precisely the same event.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/09/cronulla-summer-simmering-tension-race-riots-10-years
versus
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2016/12/side-cronulla-riot/
What a silly argument. It’s an “advantage,” not a golden ticket. I don’t want to get into the argument about exactly where the line is, but you have to be a pretty good male athlete in order to be better than all women. The average male weekend hacker can’t beat Serena Williams. The overlap on the Venn diagram of “sufficiently good athletes” and “trans women” is relatively small. (And gets even smaller if you assume that some of the advantage goes away during transition.)
Interesting, though, that according to the article, McKinnon implicitly accepts the 2003 IOC rules, which restrict the testosterone levels for athletes wanting to compete as women. That already violates the standard trans dogma that you are whatever gender you identify as.
Silly stereotypes like ‘male bodies have competitive advantage against female bodies in most sports’? Wow, zany.
But ‘playing by the rules’ entails male bodies in one league, and female bodies in another. What McKinnon wants is to not play by the rules.
Barry Bonds would like to let it be known that you can’t call him a cheater for using steroids, because hey, he didn’t hit a home run in EVERY at bat.
Ah I wonder what happened to the times when feminists believed that having a penis did not confer some magic properties to the possessor.
Strangely enough , I remember some people complaining about similar things about Amelie Mauresmo , and how dare she play against Steffi Graf when a masculine lesbian like her clearly belongs to the mens side(snigger). Oh and I’ve heard the same spoken about Serena too (and black atheletes in general face such criticism). What a lovely side youll seem to have chosen .
Its curious you use the word “swamped” – How many trans gender athletes do you know ? Does it exceed their expected proportion ?
Nah the issue is who gets to choose what the word woman means.
You can tell us males to butt out but what are you going to do about the (biological) women who disagree ? Your view is no more valid than theirs.
Your issue is that you have already made that choice. I remember the Ophelia that said that she wanted to explore ideas about gender but would respect the transgender persons request on how they should be addressed . Why didnt you just say “Ill use the pronoun they want , but dont expect any rights that pronoun should confer” – it would have saved a lot of us a lot of time.
In most sport (barring some obvious exceptions), the male body does not have that much of an advantage. Is the best tennis player , the biggest , strongest male ? How about Cricket ? Or Chess ? Or the marathon ? Why then do you see such a disparity between men’s sport and women’s sport? Are biological issues enough to explain why Serena and Venus only felt they could beat someone outside the top 200 ranked males ?
Are the women , just not good enough(I dont have that view and I doubt you ) ?
As a male , I respect Judith Polgar. I dont care that she was never world chess champion. You can decide whether women competing against “male bodies”, whatever the sport, would be worth losing a few medals or whether you want to concede that the women just arent good enough.
@5,
Dude, it’s not a “choice” or a “view,” it’s a “fact.” “Woman” has a perfectly clear meaning. If other women can’t understand that, that’s their problem. We’re not required to honor their lack of comprehension.
Deepak, yes the male body has massive advantages in cricket and tennis. This is why Serena Williams hits-out with low ranked/unranked male players. This is why Billie Jean-King at the height of her powers was well matched with 55 year old male trundler. This is why the same trundler beat Margaret Court in straight sets (at the height of her powers).
A fast bowler in cricket needs trajectory (from his/her height) and strength to generate pace. Men tend to have an advantage in these areas. Strength is needed in batting. Speed and explosivd strenghf is needed in fielding.
Hello, pharyngulite! Good job starting out with snide sarcasm, that lets us know up front that you not are here with reasonable intent. As for Martina’s phrasing, no one stated that the penis confers powers, not even Martina in that infamous tweet, so bonus disingenuous points for you. What she used is called a ‘synecdoche’, please look the word up if it is not familiar to you.
Here are some details you have [accidentally overlooked] / [deliberately elided] (I’ll let you choose). Amelie and Serena are women. Women who were born and developed as women. Women in the sense that that are biologically female adults.
McKinnon is male. Mckinnon was born male, developed male, and spent years living as a male. Commonly called a man, meaning male adult. McKinnon has lately taken testosterone suppression, and possibly other hormone / surgical treatment, and has claimed entry to female leagues on that basis. Yet each person’s physicality is delimited by their development, as it is during our development that we attain our full size and body proportions, and hence the things dependent on size: lung capacity (==> oxygenation), muscle size, bone thickness and similar.
These are the things that cause men to dominate the upper reaches of athletics, and hence the basis of sex segregation in sports is simply: did you develop as male, or female? Changes that follow this are trivial.
And neither is yours over ours. But when we are discussing the meanings of words that are used as the vernacular (as opposed to specialised jargon), the meaning of words are determined solely by common use. And in this context use, woman means ‘adult female.’
What a silly statement. Why should someone’s rights change based on the pronouns they prefer? I thought the goal was for us all to have the same rights? And when it comes to sporting participation, our rights are identical: we can all compete, and the league we are placed in is determined by our sex (in sports where one sex has an advantage over the other on average). Notice that this is not in breach of McKinnon’s mantra “Sport is a human right.”
Tennis: the best player is indeed male. Serena Williams herself has said that she cannot win in the men’s league.
Cricket: the best player of all time is Donald Bradman, male, and the best player currently is debatable… but is male.
Chess: are you being facetious? No one here at least has ever claimed that chess has any necessary physicality. That said, the best player currently is Magnus Carlsen, male, and the most likely reason for discrepancies between the level of male and female players is most likely societal rather than anything innate to males/females.
Yes.
Again with the chess! But if your attempt to muddy the discussion by including chess is notably facetious, what should I say about your wording of women being ‘not good enough’? This looks like a clumsy attempt at poisoning the well to me.
Holms, Karsten Braasch (ranked 203) took the Williams sisters up on the challenge you and Deepak refer too, and beat them easily. The sisters played a set each. In his opinion women aren’t able to chase down balls as well as men and counter the spin men can impart on the ball. Functions of biological differences in height, strength and power.
Navratilova has stepped back from the flippant “penis,” remark. I think it was a mistake. But it was not the substance of her criticism. Perhaps we can excuse Deepak but McKinnon is supposed to be a philosopher. McKinnon kept on going back to it and straw-manning.
Deepak, it isn’t about being “good enough”, it is about the clear sexual dimorphism in our species (which, granted, is less than that in the other apes). The fact is, women have gotten hurt in sport trans-women who are much larger than the natal women have played aggressively enough to break the women’s limbs. The fact is, men are in general taller, with greater musculature, and the fact that there are some women who manage to grow quite large, and who develop their muscle mass to a large extent doesn’t change that. It isn’t about “being good enough” – a faux feminism at best, one that tries to pretend that feminists are saying men and women are exactly alike with no differences.
Feminists for the most part tend to be realists, and are aware of the differentials in size and strength between male and female bodies. Women were divided into their own leagues to give them a chance to compete on a fair playing field not because they were not capable, skilled, or talented, but because their smaller size/muscle mass puts them at a disadvantage.
I join the others here in scoffing at “chess” – this is not a ‘sport’ where size matters, obviously. You might as well include poker, now being played as a spectator ‘sport’ in some venues.
I love the “it would have saved a lot of us a lot of time” bit. Oh yes? It would have saved you all that time you wasted typing rage at me on the intertubes? That’s my fault, is it? Imagine my profound regret.
One aspect of this I haven’t seen discussed (could be I’m not looking in the right places): women tennis players have fought for a long time, and mostly successfully*, for equal prize money. But if you’re ranked, say, 150th on the men’s tour, you’re just not getting much. If all it takes is a year or so of suppressing testosterone to join the women’s tour, given the potential monetary rewards wouldn’t you be tempted?
Cycling has the opposite problem–the only women cyclists getting any money out of it are those at the very top of the sport. But that just magnifies the stakes.
*I think some of the majors still give more to men.
Deepak asked Ophelia ‘Why didnt you just say “Ill use the pronoun they want , but dont expect any rights that pronoun should confer” – it would have saved a lot of us a lot of time.’ (I assume it was a question, what with it starting with ‘why’, but the lack of question mark leaves some ambiguity).
So Deepak has decided that he knows what Ophelia’s views were from the start based on…what? Psychic powers, maybe? That is pure Horde dishonesty in action. Take what is said, extrapolate and distort until it says what they want it to say, then act as though that is exactly what was meant from the start and attack that version.
Also, who is this ‘us’ whose precious time was so disgracefully wasted?
Deepak @ 5:
Oh goody, you picked an example that has objective measures — the marathon.
I went to the iiaf.org web site, and looked up the best marathoners of 2018. The top women’s time of 2018 was 2 hours, 18 minutes, and 11 seconds. Do you know how many men posted better times than that in 2018? I don’t, because the site stopped listing beyond number 276 who had a time of 2:12:00, still a full six-plus minutes better than the best female time. (The single best time was 2:01:39) In other words, at least hundreds, and quite possibly over a thousand, men were better marathoners than the best woman.
Yes, it is my view that women are, biologically, “just not good enough” to compete with men at the very highest levels of sport. (That’s a key qualifier: of course there are women who are better than 99.99% of men at their chosen sport. But that isn’t good enough to compete at the highest levels.) I’m not sure why that is such as astonishing view to you.
Enlighten me, then. If it’s not biology, then what do you think it is?
Did women run slower marathon times in 2018 because they were discriminated against? Was Serena Williams somehow unable to afford to hire the best coaches and trainers and other resources as the men?
Is it because the discrimination was already “baked in” during the childhood of women athletes? And if so, then doesn’t that mean that someone like Rachel Mackinnon, who was “assigned male at birth” and treated by society as male for most of her life, also has that advantage over her “assigned female at birth” competitors?
OT to What a Maroon: the Slams have had equal prize money since 2007. Below the Slam level it gets tricky, in part because not all tournaments run both a men’s and women’s event.
@Ophelia
Sorry , can you provide an example of me raging at you (yes I know HJ Hornbeck and someone else whose name escapes me were nasty to you) – but thats not who I am referring to. There were some of us who respected you and were not happy with the way you were treated by some on our side and said so too, even though we felt you were wrong. As far as I remember , when you left FTB , i followed you here but was surprised to see you continue on the path you chose wrt this one issue. You indulged in many stereotypes and fallacies and at some point , i felt that perhaps you had not been completely honest with your views on transgender people. From all what you have written since , it seems clear that you dont consider Transgender women as women and you should have been upfront about it.
So rage ? no. regret , disappointment , sadness yes. Its sort of when Dawkins went Dear Muslima – It wasnt rage(atleast at that time) – it was why would you do this ? what happened to your logic and reason ? What happened to your empathy ? Maybe its just temporary – i bet some introspection will happen soon and so on. instead we got to witness a steady downward slide (in both cases).
I dont know if Rachel bullied someone on twitter or not (and at this point , i dont trust your reporting and your usage of words like swamped, harassed and bullying) – but lets assume she did. Lets assume that one transgender woman (and perhaps more) are bullies on twitter. lets assume some of them are using the rights they want for personal gain and depriving other women , unfairly of victories in sport. Why is that more important than for e.g. https://www.hrc.org/blog/new-study-reveals-shocking-rates-of-attempted-suicide-among-trans-adolescen
? Why is there nothing about trans problems given your interest in these issues ? Why is there only this feminists was harshly harassed/bullied by this trans activitist ? And no Im not telling you what to write about , Im showing where your emphasis seems to be.
I don’t know, Deepak, why did you choose to comment here on a post about trans women in sports instead of writing something about suicide rates among trans adolescents?
False dichotomies work both ways, you know.
Wow. At #5, Deepak asks questions and makes an argument. Commenters respond to Deepak with evidence-based counterargument.
At #15, Deepak ignores the responses to his own argument and changes the subject.
The new subject: trans adolescent suicide rates.
I don’t know, Deepak. If we were talking about trans adolescent suicide rates, I might say something about how pro-trans lobby groups regularly ignore the Samaritans guidelines for media reporting on suicide. I might say something about co-morbidities. There are other things I might say.
But we’re not talking about trans suicide rates. You only brought it up in hopes that an argumentum ad misericordiam would silence us.
(“Trans kids are troubled. Therefore trans activists’ claims are all true. Or at least, if they’re not, you should shut up about it.”) <— Not a compelling argument.
I have no idea why you’re surprised about this. Did you think she would respond to bullying and change what she believed in the face of hostility?
And Ophelia has discussed the issue of suicide rates among trans adolescents. She has shown herself sympathetic, even if she might be somewhat skeptical of the reasons. I mean, could it be that maybe, just maybe, becoming trans doesn’t actually solve all their problems? I myself having been suicidal at one time know that it really isn’t that easy, and that people who are suicidal who are encouraged to become trans may find that doesn’t magically make all the pain go away. I myself was at one time encouraged to become trans, but opted not to take that route because I knew that wasn’t going to fix the problems I had with gender stereotypes being enforced on me, it would merely change which gender stereotypes.
And maybe, just maybe, it really isn’t feminist women causing the suicides…maybe things go just a bit deeper than that…you have any statistics to show what percent of trans suicides are caused by feminist women?
Deepak –
It was plural “you” as opposed to singular, responding to your “it would have saved a lot of us a lot of time.” I assumed by “us” you meant all the people who typed rage at me at the time, or all the FTB branch of them, or some such collective.
No, you’re right, I hadn’t been completely honest with my views on transgender people at the time, but that wasn’t because I was trying to lure anyone into my web or anything like that. I wasn’t sure what I thought; I wasn’t sure I was right about what I did think; I wasn’t sure what my views would be the next day; I wasn’t sure of anything. I mostly tried to avoid the subject.
The explosion at FTB did a lot to change my mind about that, and it also gave me a shitload of evidence that the “movement” (as opposed to trans people themselves) was poisonous and full of unargued dogma.
I hope that clears it up for you.
I like to remember, when I read people talking about ‘sports’, that typically what we’re talking about is ‘physical activities that, by definition, men are good at’. There are lots of physical activities that women are good at that, for some strange reason, aren’t classified as ‘sports’, and I don’t think we see a lot of transwomen clamouring to participate or compete in them. Where, for example, are the transwomen complaining about not being able to compete in gymnastics or figure skating? Where are the professional transwomen ballerinas? Just curious.
Guest, good point.
Women can also compete fairly with men in ultramarathons and in some other extreme sports where women’s greater physiological ability to handle profound stress and extremes of temperature come in handy.
So, yes; there are sports where women simply “aren’t good enough”–i.e.,their bodies aren’t built to–compete with men on an equal basis. And there are some sports in which men “aren’t good enough” to compete fairly with us.
This isn’t social discrimination, it’s biology. That thing trans activists love to ignore, when they’re not actively denying it.
Funny, though, isn’t it, that trans men (so-called) aren’t clamoring to compete against males in sports that require male physiological advantages. There are as many trans-identified females are their are trans-identified males, so why is that? Is sport not a human right for trans men?
Gee, what could account for the difference. I guess it’s a mystery.
Oh my god. in #15, Deepak references an infamous trope:
The ‘Dear Muslima’ trope being when a person questions why a person or group is objecting to X unfairness, when Y unfairness is so much worse. It’s a way of trivialising certain complaints simply because the world contains even worse. It’s obnoxious and illogical, because the existence of a worse injustice does not imply we should forget about the smaller ones; it is a mere silencing tactic.
Imagine my surprise then, when Deepak continues in the very next paragraph:
“Why complain about X when Y is worse?”
(Sad trumpet sound)
guest @ #20: look up the movie “Girl”, a 2018 film about a (real life) Belgian trans ballerina. Some trans activists lambasted it, but the person whose life it was based upon praised it. The director took liberties, but that is to be expected.
I was doing a little reading and thinking about this last night, and thought I’d write it down to help my own understanding—and share it here in case it might be of interest.
The first thing I wanted to understand is what exactly we mean by ‘sports’. My hunch, that it has always been something tied to men, seems to be borne out by its roots in training and competition for military activity and organised hunts. By definition, then, the activities we refer to as ‘sports’ required the development of physical skills associated with men’s activities, and thus were tailored to taking advantage of male anatomy (and, possibly, male psychology). According to Wikipedia, the first Olympics included running (both nude and in armour), boxing, wrestling, pankration (apparently early MMA), chariot racing, long jump, javelin throw, and discus throw, all clearly tied to activities it would be of value to excel at in war.
Team sports also seem to have evolved from military training activities designed to improve team coordination; these group skills would also be useful in hunting large or dangerous animals.
All this is not to say women doing sports is bad, obviously, but I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that sports are physical activities specifically designed for men, so by definition women start with a disadvantage. Someone arguing that sports should be mixed because ‘otherwise feminists are admitting women are weak and frail, and not equal to men, gotcha!’ ignores this history.
I know almost nothing about sports, so would be interested in people’s ideas of what kinds of physical activity, either currently considered ‘sports’ or not, already existing or yet to be invented, are or could be tailored to female anatomy—I’m thinking gymnastics (dating back to Minoan bull-jumping), and I mentioned figure skating previously just because it involves grace and flexibility. I’ve heard people say women excel in long-distance swimming. I don’t know enough about it, and am not really willing to look it up, but I understand female matadors are a thing–I don’t know if this is something women might excel in because we tend to be quicker on our feet. I’m also now thinking maybe equestrian sports, because women tend to be lighter and more flexible, and because there’s less stigma attached to women riding than to women competing in more ‘traditional’ sports so women (who can afford horses!) face fewer psychological barriers to competing than in other sports, but of course the first use of horses (aside from transport, and eating) was for war and hunting, and the structure and rules of equestrian events still reflect this history, so I’m not sure.
It clears it in the sense that the reaction is human. it doesnt clear it in the sense of why would an intelligent person make arguments of the form “People who support a view were nasty to me , So I oppose the view” – Because I dont think you actually deny that there are folks who for whatever reason are born with male/female genitalia but identify as women/men. No matter what FTB dogma/vitriol/nastiness/explosions you faced that core fact doesnt change and how we should treat them doesnt change at all.
I remember you used to write some posts of the form “replace women with jews or blacks” and you find that statements being made would be unacceptable. Id think you could try the same with your posts on trans related topics with black women/lesbian women instead of trans women and see how many times those statements were actually made in past history and how acceptable they are now.
In any case thats probably my last comment for awhile – thanks for your time.
So Deepak, none of the rest of us get responses to our substantive points? Your entire purpose in coming here was to attack Ophelia for saying bad things, without any attempt to justify why they’re such bad things to say?
I’m not surprised, mind you.
Be sure to run back to Pharyngula for your high-fives for telling off the TERFs, just the slymepitters used to slink back to their home to brag about how they totally stuck it to those SJWs.
Good god. That was pathetic.
Of course, that is not what Ophelia said.
There are people who identify as God’s prophet. I wonder if Deepak thinks we should believe them on their say-so. Or are we allowed to question their claims without being called prophetphobic bigots?
Deepak apparently think “how we should treat them” is “we should not question them because disagreement hurts their feelings and look at their suicide rates”.
Deepak –
No, that’s not quite what I meant, although it is true that the ridiculous way people carried on did help nudge me into thinking they probably weren’t thinking very carefully or clearly, and thus made it easier to conclude they were just wrong.
But also…yes, the incredible venom and rage did give off a kind of stink, even apart from the personal aspect.The two are linked, and this is a very big part of the problem. This is what we keep saying. It’s not a sign of a healthy social justice movement when so much of it involves threats of violence, all the more so when the threats of violence are aimed at a subaltern caste. The issue isn’t “people were nasty” but “what is wrong with these people that they constantly fantasize aloud about ‘hanging terfs’ and similar? What is wrong with the movement they are supporting that it inspires this?”
Of course I don’t deny that; I know of many such people, or “folks” if you insist. But the obstacle is that I don’t consider “identify as” a magic phrase. People can “identify as” anything, anything at all, and that doesn’t make them whatever it is. People can “identify as” tigers or beings from another planet or Cleopatra or ripe fruit; that doesn’t make them those things. I realize that in the case of sex, and sex alone, we are now expected to treat “identifying as” as the same thing as being, but the trouble is I’m unable to do that. I could say I’m doing it but it would just be words for the sake of appeasing angry demands.
Methinks that Deepak hasn’t actually read Ophelia’s excellent writings on trans issues, if he thinks that they would become unacceptable if any other group were substituted.
Feeling that one has been born as ‘the wrong sex’, as I did for most of my life (although I didn’t have the concept of ‘trans’ until quite late) is entirely down to institutionalised patriarchal misogyny. When everyone you encounter expresses a particular view of how members of a sex class feel and act; all media reinforce the idea that female = feminine and male = masculine (both of which are strictly defined); the whole of history (as it is taught) reinforces the dominant view; and it is almost impossible to find a contrary view (because it is suppressed, often viciously), then when one thinks and wants to act outside the pink or blue box, it is simpler to come to the conclusion that one’s body is wrong than that everybody else is wrong about how humans should be allowed to think and act.
As you can tell, I was late in coming to radical feminism; largely because the dominant narrative lied about what radical feminists actually profess. Thanks to Ophelia and her commenters here, that has been rectified.
I haven’t lost the dysphoria, of course. Disordered thinking instilled since infancy isn’t overcome easily. I’ll always be more comfortable in clothing intended to be worn by men than that aimed at members of my sex (and women’s clothing is often made less comfortable and practical for the most spurious of reasons*). I’ll never wear makeup, or my hair longer than an inch. I’ll never be as submissive and unassuming as people expect old disabled women to be. Indeed, since I have considerably less to lose than younger women, I feel that it is incumbent on me to speak up on their behalf.
So: there are two main ‘streams’ of trans people.
Firstly, there are those who have culture-imposed dysphoria and so feel that they must ‘really’ be the opposite sex, since they feel incapable of submitting to the demands imposed on them because of their actual sex. Those are largely gay and/or effeminate men and young women (usually lesbian and/or autistic) who are all the victims of patriarchal misogyny. After all, if gender weren’t a hierarchy with masculine men on the top and everyone else underneath, there would be no cultural expectations of behaviour according to sex, would there? Everyone could wear whatever they wanted to, and be as masculine or feminine as suited their personality, and non-conforming people wouldn’t feel that they must become simulacra of the opposite sex in order to fit in.
Secondly, and outnumbering the former by at least an order of magnitude, there are the MRA fetishists who have no dysphoria (and often no intention of transitioning other than by clothing/makeup – and not always those) who have found a Trojan horse for invading the safe spaces of women, whom they despise. These are the people that even trans people have a problem with. They are loud, violent, litigious bullies, like Mr. McKinnon and the GameStop “It’s MA’AM” guy.
In conclusion, Ophelia’s fair and balanced assessment of what is happening to the trans community since the MRA invasion bears no resemblance to the mischaracterisation put forward by Deepak and his ilk. Women are adult human females, which trans women aren’t, and women deserve the rights which have been long fought for (and which are still inadequate and nowhere near the level of rights which men enjoy) without having them taken away overnight by men in dresses and makeup. By all means, wear dresses and makeup if it makes you feel wonderful. But compete against other men. No-one is stopping you.
____________________
*Example in a recent exchange with a clothing manufacturer:
My response:
Because women can feel a single pea beneath a dozen mattresses, so a pocket right next to the skin (especially the seams of the pocket) would be torture. Plus they’d only fall asleep with chocolate in the pocket and wake up to a mess of melted Green and Black’s all over the sheets – which I, a man, have never done*.
It has always puzzled me why baby boys have clothes with pockets at all. What the Hell do babies need pockets for?
* because I don’t wear pj’s. Whether I’ve fallen asleep with a chunk of said confection on the pillow and woken up with brownface on one side is another matter.
Hahaha ironically I do find pockets uncomfortable for sleeping. I sleep in lightweight sweatpants in winter (the bedroom is unheated), and I have to remember not to choose the pair with pockets.
Well, that about sums it up. If feminism were to succeed, ther would be no need for “tranness” or “non-binary-ness.” Those categories would be meaningless. As Ophelia, and others, have noted (and I’m beginning to appreciate more and more) the extreme trans activists and the non-binary special snowflakes depend upon the continued existence of rigid, exclusive, sexually-defined, binary, behavioral roles for their positions to have any meaning at all.
Yep. The way I see it, society has forced men into one box, and women into another one. The women’s box is objectively worse, but both are uncomfortable in their own ways, at least to many people living inside them.
Feminism says, “hey, let’s open the lid on those boxes. Anyone who really enjoys it in there can stay inside, but the rest of us want out!” A particular branch of trans theory seems to say, “boxes are awesome and everyone should live in one — the only problem is that some people were put in the wrong box.” (And then there are the ones who think that we just need to have enough different boxes.)
I recall having heard something like The Parable of the Boxes before, I just didn’t remember the details clearly enough to quote it, or want to risk getting it wrong in trying to retell it. Was that one of yours originally, Screechy? It’s very good.
Bruce,
No, I don’t think I’ve written anything like that here before. I was under the impression that my comment was an original way of putting a not-so-original thought, but now that you mention it, maybe I was unconsciously borrowing from someone else’s comment here. If so, I blame my research intern monkeys.
Searching this site for “box” brings up a few posts by tiggerthewing that may be the ones I’m recalling. They are here,
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2015/guest-post-so-used-to-living-in-boxes/
and here
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2016/guest-post-reinforcing-the-boxes-instead-of-dismantling-them/
Such references won’t be exclusive to here though – they’re kind of generalized public property. It’s one of those shared metaphor things. I can’t give any specific references but I know I’ve seen conversations around putting people in the female box versus the male box many times. Social roles & expectations as a box=pervasive metaphor.
I assure everyone that I did not invent the concept of boxes. As Ophelia rightly says, it is a useful metaphor which has probably been around for as long as there have been boxes and strict social roles.